Sectarian and dissident republican graffiti which appeared in north Belfast over the weekend has been condemned.

Shop fronts and walls were daubed with slogans such as ‘RIRA’ and ‘The war is not over’ at Cliftonville Circus.

North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds said: “As well as vandalising a local shopping area, those responsible are seeking to promote terrorist violence.

“They are a tiny minority and their vile ideas have virtually no support. It speaks volumes that they have to skulk under the cover of darkness to scrawl their obscene messages.

“The people responsible for these depraved messages are totally out of touch with the wishes and thinking of local people.

“Terrorist violence is as wrong today as it has always been wrong in the past and those seeking to sustain a new campaign of violence, murder and destruction must be given no succour or hiding place within the community.

“Cliftonville Circus is a shared space between the nearby mixed communities and this is a blatant attempt by republican bigots to intimidate the Protestant community from using the area.”